"With the exception of Shakespeare, you have told me of more knowledge than any one living - To say that sincerely is strange praise.

Letter from Dickinson to Susan Gilbert Dickinson, about 1882.

from The Letters of Emily Dickinson by Thomas H. Johnson
and An Emily Dickinson Encyclopedia by Jane Donahue Eberwein, Ed.

(1830-1913)Emily's sister in law shared many of her "mutual passions - for literature, for gardening, for recipes, music, nature. Their intense and constant friendship spanned five decades, and the poet sent substantially more writings to Susan than to any other correspondent. According to surviving documents of Dickinson's writing habits, Susan was the only reader at whose behest Emily changed a poem."